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Tea Party, OWS & Blue Republicans: Is This Phase Change?
Of all my articles to date, the one that has drawn the most attention made the simple claim that in the political and economic histories of nations, “phase changes” happen, and that one might be about to happen here in the USA. A phase change, which may happen once every few generations, causes a country to move down a dramatically different path that had been predicted by no one.
I wrote,
We cannot see past a phase change. I don’t know if the U.S.A. will have undergone one at the time of the 2012 election, but the necessary conditions for one are all in place, as far as I can tell.
One has to reach back a good way in American history for a time of such rapidly rising sentiment that not only are our leaders unable even to think of real solutions to the problems of greatest concern (rather than just making expedient changes at the margin), but also that the prevailing political and economic system is structurally incapable of delivering any long-term solutions in its current form.
The rise of America’s broadly non-partisan political movements increasingly supports the hypothesis.
Solving a problem requires three things – first, recognizing there is a problem; second, determining what the problem is, and third, working out an effective solution.
America’s three most significant rising political groups outside the party system – the tea party, the occupation of Wall Street, and Blue Republicans, are agreed that the prevailing and economic and political paradigm is somehow responsible for a deep crisis and has to go. But what is really interesting – and provides some insight into where the USA may be heading – is the area of so-far unacknowledged agreement among these groups regarding the nature of the problem, and its huge implications for American politics.
Despite its now having been infiltrated by more neo-conservative elements, the Tea Party in its original conception (largely inspired by Ron Paul’s run for President in 2008) was mostly concerned with the negative effects on the average American’s liberty and wealth of the concentration of political power in the hands of a few. The Occupy Wall Street movement is largely concerned with the negative effects on the average American’s liberty and wealth of the concentration of economic resources in the hands of a few. The Blue Republicans see that the two are profoundly connected.
Except for a few at the extremes, no one is saying that the State or corporations are always and inherently evil. The problem, rather, is with what they have been allowed to become.
Regarding the agreement between America’s spontaneously emergent activist groups that many in the media would prefer simply to label as “left-wing” or “right-wing”, I can think of numerous statements about which most original members of the Tea Party could agree with most of OWSers – even if they don’t yet realize it.
I list them here, and have chosen them for two very important reasons. First, they are statements that both conservatives and liberals could claim as their own. Second, they reflect many of the very basic moral instincts that unite most people in our culture – even those who might claim superficially to have very different political leanings.
a) A system in which members of the boards of large banks have positions in the country’s central bank should be eliminated. (c.f. the Federal Reserve system)
b) Government officials should not be allowed to provide support for companies with which they are (or recently have been) associated. (c.f. TARP, Goldman Sachs, the bailouts etc.)
c) Wealth should be a function of hard work, risk-taking and even a bit of good luck. It should not be the result of a systematic transfer of wealth to a financial class with a special license by government to create money as debt and profit from fees and interest on that created money. (c.f. Fractional reserve banking in a fiat money system)
d) A system that allows profits to be private while socializing losses should be eliminated. (c.f. the entire American monetary system, including all of the above)
e) Wars that kill innocent people are bad if they are not in self-defense. (c.f. Iraq war)
f) A minimum condition for military activity is that it must make us safer. (c.f. the link between suicide terrorism and foreign occupation)
g) The Bill of Rights should be followed. (c.f. … oh, how long do you have?)
h) Telling the truth should never be a crime. (c.f. Patriot Act)
i) Where government spending does not produce its intended benefits, it should stop (even if we disagree on whether it should be redirected or not spent at all). (c.f. stated purpose of, say, the creation of the Department of Energy).
Everything on this list could be said as passionately by a liberal as by a conservative, even if one or the other might be more fervent or sweeping in some of the statements. They could not be said by a Marxist, Neo-con or a mainstream Congressman.
This list is a great deal to agree about, and these items are perhaps the most important and urgent issues in American politics today. Yet, the mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans agree with each other on wanting to do nothing significant about any of them: indeed, they have consistently voted every aspect of the very system at which the above list takes aim.
America’s phase change is inevitable if/when activists of different stripes recognize that their true opponents are not activists who choose another label or carry a different sign – but the very system that is decidedly neither capitalistic nor liberal and the current duopolistic (Republicrat) political settlement that maintains it.
Indeed, the true opponent of the Tea Party and the OWS movement is surely state-sponsored corporatism (to which, incidentally, Mussolini gave another name), in which certain economic interests can concentrate wealth because the government gives them special license to do so – and in which political interests and individual politicians can only concentrate power because they pay off voters with programs that invariably fail to live up to their promises, using money created by the same system, and pay off the aforementioned economic interests with legislation that favors them.
The general point is that what the occupiers of Wall Street are complaining about depends on what the tea-partiers have been complaining about – and vice versa.
All the while this system exists, taxing the rich more or increasing regulations (for example), will be like taking indigestion pills while still eating too much bad food – treating the symptoms while simply making the cause worse. We can argue about which pills we should be taking… but let’s at least all agree that we should stop eating the bad food.
If the various activists on America’s streets continue to regard themselves as politically opposed, the “phase change” may not happen. But when they realize that that what has been done in the name of conservatism and liberalism, Republican and Democrat, over recent years has been neither conservative nor liberal, but a systematic disenfranchisement and impoverishment of the well-intentioned on both the left and the right, America will have its phase change.
These various new political waves that are rolling down American streets could of course break in any direction. As I mentioned, we cannot see past a phase change, but my greatest hope would be that the waves will break in a direction that will make us all wonder why we ever put up with our current corrupt political duopoly for so long.
At the very least, let’s make Wright Patman (a Democratic Congressman from 1928 to 1976, and Chairman of the Committee of Banking and Currency from 1963 to 1975) correct, when he said,
I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.
That’s the very least the tea-partiers and the occupiers must do and, by the way, the Blue Republicans have an idea about how to do it.
13 Responses to “Tea Party, OWS & Blue Republicans: Is This Phase Change?”
Yeah it’s all just a matter of interpretation.
Iraq was a war of self defense in some eyes, others not. You will satisfy neither.
You list that money should come from hard work, but people are saying not so damn hard please and certainly not for so little and if I agree to take a risk, then take out the corruption and if I’m just unlucky make sure I don’t end up under a bridge being refused medical care and food. Of course the Republican Party disagrees with ALL of this. I’m still not certain about the some Democrats. Some are called blue dogs and seem beholden to none. I think they are Republican plants. In any case no one up their seems to think that taking a job and working for some clown is ALSO taking a risk!
In the end their are two parties, pick one that fits your belief the best, then vote straight ticket. Anything less than this is patently self defeating. Why? Because EVERYTHING is partisan now and NOTHING is going to change it.
There is the Tea Party, but in my opinion it is dying because it is stupid and that’s how it is perceived by most. There is the OWS, but it’s a demonstration readying itself to blow up or blow over, but I think it will come back time and again if it blows over and things don’t change, more violently each time most probably. The “Blue Republicans”…? What you just made that up? They don’t exist except in your post. Yep we are back to two again.
There will be no sea change or phase, or, whatever you want to mislabel a Major Change as, until things start breaking. However in this sense I agree with you: Our Form of Government is Redundant in the 21st Century, but I would add that all the other nations have noticed, but because of the American media, the American people are just now finding out.
@Allen.
They have existed for some time… and are definitely rising.
http://ronpaulflix.com/2011/09/robin-koerner-with-judge-andrew-napolitano-on-blue-republicans-sep-12-2011/
http://ronpaulflix.com/2011/07/robin-koerner-talks-with-adam-kokesh-about-blue-republican/
… or try Google…
July 2011 don’t seem like, “around for some time”, to me.
It is my opinion that for a Democrat to vote Republican would be horribly self defeating. In fact anyone less than wealthy voting Republican would be horribly self defeating IMO.
…and the Ron Paul angle? I mean Ron Paul? What?
Robin, great essay. Hopefully people take it to heart. I think Allen makes a good point when he says the partisan forces are very strong but we can hope that they may be overcome.
I believe that related to this is the view many have that the USA is entering a more elderly stage of life, another kind of “phase” (in the life of nations, so this theory goes, at the risk of organicism). In this case, the USA is entering a climacteric or menopause, or has passed it already (after the 1973 oil embargo and “energy crisis” and all the inflation then, or after the 1980 election of the evil Ronald Reagan, who got our nation cast out of the liberal Garden of Eden, you choose.)
Thanks for the article, Robin. Please know that despite my lack of comments, I have been following your articles here and at the Huffington Post and appreciate your non-partisan approach to politics.
Your articles have been getting a lot of play in the libertarian blogosphere, particularly over at Free Talk Live.
If I have any advice, it is only that you do not place all your eggs in one basket (so to speak) in terms of your support for Ron Paul. While he is undoubtedly the best Republican presidential candidate (in my mind) in terms of defending individual liberty, supporting peace, and honoring the Constitution, he is a politician and has his own set of flaws.
The message of liberty is much bigger than Ron Paul. His candidacy (in my opinion) should be viewed as a tool for spreading the message of liberty rather than as an end in itself.
Interesting article, only the tea party is irrelevant. It is not a party, its the RNC’s way of misdirecting Republican voters dissatisfaction with their own party. They were quite successful at it, accomplishing their objective at further weakening the people’s opposition in pushing the extreme pro-corporate agenda. OWS will change the world. It already has spread across the globe. Its not bound by the narrow interests of an extreme view of one political party.
One of the parts you forgot to mention: that the Constitution implies that the Federal Government should regulate all multi-state corporations (hello? interstate commerce?) yet corporations are not registered in the U.S. (they are registered in individual states).
I love the article. Very insightful and interesting. I hope that Americans wake up and realize the power they have. My hope mostly rests with the fact that the current politicians are unlikely to suppress the internet.
Da Goat-
-[the partisan forces are very strong but we can hope that they may be overcome]-
Overcome? For what purpose?
Allen wrote:
In my opinion, voting for a politician or a political party that you don’t believe in is patently self-defeating.
The Commerce Clause has been so highly abused, it’s more painful than it is disgusting. The commerce in question is that of trade and exchange, same as the USA does with foreign nations. About the only valid extension of this is to take externalities into account.
What too many want is broad or unlimited power given to our federal government, based on misinterpretation or misconstruction of whatever favorite part of the Constitution activists choose to defile.
We’ve even seen, in the past, with the “drug-free school zone” stunt the federal government claiming totalitarian power to the level of drug-free school zones, because the presence of drugs (implying the threat of possible use) has a deleterious effect on the “national economy.” It’s similar to the sick ruling that someone growing food at home for their own consumption is subject to federal regulation, based on that same “national” precept.
A contemporary example, though he and others like him may not even claim any part of the Constitution (that they disrespect) to back them up, is Ralph Nader and his federal (they may say, wrongly, “national”) corporate charter idea, that has also been promoted by the likes of the Greens and other far left elements.
(They’re typically anti-death-penalty, yet love to talk about the federal corporate charter, and sometimes state charters, and the prospect of the “death penalty,” revoking charters, for the evil corporations. Make them do social responsibility and engage in political correctness, or they’re dead. Who knows, what’s next might be seizure, or expropriation, for violating political dicta.)
Any equating of the TP with OWS is as disingenuous as equating the R’s with the D’s. I think the OWS is growing and that the TP has already peaked, but beyond that they have more differences than similarities. As for the D’s and R’s? Once again, matters of degree matter.
Take the equating of Obama and Bush (in the original post) when it comes to foreign policy for example. Bush created the horrible mess that was Iraq. Obama is getting us out. Bush could never deal appropriately with either OBL or Kaddafy, while Obama played a significant part in getting rid of both – and with relatively few American casualties. Sure, I’m disappointed in Obama too, but he is no George Bush and the Democrats (for all their warts – which are considerable) are most definitely not the same as republicans. Who originally pushed for single payer health system? Who gives a crap about the middle class? What about environmental concerns???
Watch out for those sirens on the rocks who sing the lure of oversimplification. No, you don’t need to put wax in your ears, but keep your thinking cap on.
Ron Paul does not believe in personal liberty so long as the restrictions are being implemented at the state level in the name of Jesus. Keep up, folks.